


Time of Insects, Time of Stars

by keire_ke



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Fix-It, Multi, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29985513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keire_ke/pseuds/keire_ke
Summary: Sam's new career as Captain America is going swell. Justswell. Why do you ask? He's got the guts, he's got the shield, and Steve is there to provide advice and emotional support, though for actual support Sam must turn to Barnes, and that... that turns out to work out for the best, actually.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov/Sam Wilson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 26





	1. Death in Verbank, NY

**Author's Note:**

> Title paraphrased from the poem "Possibilities" by Wislawa Szymborska.
> 
> This is a very self-indulgent Endgame fix-it. Please enjoy.
> 
> Special thank you to Elinimate, Cosmicmechanism and Alpaca & Kittens, for helping to whip the story into shape!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A man has died in his study on a crisp October night.

The evening was dark and would become stormy in an hour or so, though the autumn chill kept the aura crisp. From the shadows emerged the mansion, half-hidden in the forests of New York state, right outside Verbank; a sprawling, three-story building of russet brick, topped with a dark roof. Two asymmetrical towers framed the structure, and the gloom seemed to spill from them onto the portico, whose two columns cast sharp shadows onto the entrance.

"We're here," the girl in the driver's seat said to her passenger.

"What, already?" he grumbled, making no move to get out. Many considered him too old to be trusted with a gun, while many others thought he was too old to see the evidence in front of his eyes, and honestly, Sheriff Lee was inclined to agree with both. His long overdue retirement party, over half a decade ago, was rudely interrupted by the new sheriff crumbling to dust mid-cheer, along with the secretary and another officer. Halving of their tiny town's police force ensured retirement was off the table, and barely a day went by without Lee feeling bitter about it. There was light in the tunnel now that Santiago was back in the saddle and Lee was counting down the days, and woe to the alien tyrant who stood in the way of his second retirement. He had many finger-waggles in him yet.

In the meantime he lifted his cup, on which the whippet in the Main Street Starbucks scrawled the approximation of the word "Slut", and peered through the tiny hole. There was something there, but whatever liquid he could feel sloshing inside was obscured by off-white foam.

"Sheriff—" the girl said.

"Patience, grasshopper." The coffee was cold. He should have finished it before they took the last turn. Not to mention it was well past eight now. He shouldn't be having coffee at this hour, anyhow. Mabel would have a cow, bless her and her strong feelings about caffeine.

"What do we do now?"

Sheriff Lee heaved a deep sigh and flicked the button of the light signal. The red and blue flashes, which deepened the rounded shadows of the entrance into whetted edges, ceased.

"The manual said the signal should stay on!"

"Is anyone watching us?"

"Huh?"

"Is there anyone in the windows?"

"No…"

"Then there's no point in flashing."

"But—"

"Indulge an old man, Gretchen," he told her. "It's late and the lights hurt my brain."

The girl softened. She was a distant cousin of his Mabel, and like Mabel, she was a pretty one: built solid, like most of local girls, with a sweet, round face and a smattering of freckles across her nose. Barely out of high school, but bright enough to be trusted with the traffic tickets and unleashed dogs. People liked her. She was good company, and with sufficient guidance she would make a fine officer. It was a pity they couldn't find someone younger than Lee to train her, but that couldn't be helped.

Lee swirled his cup, hoping to catch the last of the foam coating the sides, and finished the coffee. Gretchen was already out, holding the door open as he dragged his aching bones out of the car and onto the gravel. "Is the coroner here yet?"

Gretchen pulled out her phone and flicked through it. "They will be around in half an hour."

"What's taking them so long?" he groused, taking a cautious step. Gravel! He was way too old for this shit. Where was the grim reality of the Hollywood movie, where a mere mention of the phrase guaranteed a man's funeral would come within days, he asked himself, and here he was, trying every single day.

"They're at the pumpkin festival."

"Why, did someone die?"

"Bert's wife and Sam's wife are competing, and last year Sam's wife accidentally smashed a gourd, they say it was accidental, but you know her, she's mean. So, they resolved to keep an eye on her, just in case."

Lee scoffed.

"It's a big deal! The town allocated special funds for electricity, so that the area can be lit. The whole town got two extra hours of electricity. We're hosting, and the crowds are huge!" Gretchen's eyes shone. Lee recalled the pamphlets, and yeah, they were hosting the contest from the entire region, for the first time in decades, no wonder she was impressed. She was a teen during the decimation, and hardly anyone had been in the mood to celebrate in the years that followed. Now, with those who returned attending, it would be the biggest crowd she'd have ever seen.

"Did they announce the winners yet?"

Gretchen dutifully put her nose back into her phone and made a face. "Just the squashes. I can't believe this one!" The squash in the picture was yellow, regular in girth and slightly curved, with a blue ribbon sitting on its very tip. "It looks like a wonky banana. It's Linda's. Of course Linda won."

"Linda always wins," Lee said, wisely. "But I guess they felt they had to, this year especially. She struggled to keep her garden alive while Sam and the kids were gone. She deserves the win." Linda was a mean old bat, but she took care of her garden and shared her lumpiest squashes freely with whoever needed them.

Gretchen flushed and nodded. She offered Lee her elbow, and together they made their way up the three stairs, one shuffling step at a time, into the shadow of the portico. 

"There should really be a light here," Lee grumbled. The house was old, built at the turn of the previous century, but surely even then they knew entrances should be lit. Mr. Carter was a rich recluse, but this was a bit much, even for an elderly recluse. Lee was an elderly recluse, and his porch was positively glowing.

They managed to locate the doorbell eventually, which rang a surprisingly merry tune, very much at odds with the somber weather, and within seconds the old door creaked, revealing a young woman.

"Good evening, miss. I'm Lee. This is Podolsky."

"Good evening," the girl said. She must have been about the same age as his granddaughter, he thought. Her eyes were bright and intent, though she was rather pale and slim, all the paler with a bright red shawl around her shoulders. She was a good deal shorter than Gretchen, too, barely came up to her nose. Not a local girl, then.

"We've got a call about a death."

"Are you doctors?" she asked, rolling her R’s. Lee wondered about the accent, but who could keep track in this day and age.

"We're from the sheriff's office," Gretchen said shyly, indicating her badge.

"I see." The girl stared at them some more, nonplussed, her fingers twitching on the doorframe, until finally she took a step back and held the door open. "Come in."

"Are you the housekeeper?" Gretchen asked. "I didn't know Mr. Carter had a housekeeper."

"I am the housekeeper," the girl said.

"Can you take us to the deceased?"

"Yes. Please follow me." She seemed to float as they proceeded down the corridor, and the lights flickered as she passed them. "Sorry. There is a generator, but it's very old now."

"The town has electricity until ten tonight." Gretchen piped up. "Looks like it'll be the same over the whole weekend."

"We forgot to switch," the housekeeper admitted, wringing her hands. "Will the flickering be a problem?"

"I've seen worse," Lee said gamely, because the girl seemed unduly distraught. It was a wonder the house was lit at all, the mansion was so remote, and with the shortages and issues he was frankly astonished they even had fuel.

The housekeeper stopped in front of a door. "It's terrible what's happened," she cautioned and turned the knob.

"What is?" Gretchen asked, but Lee straightened and let go of her elbow.

"The report mentioned he committed suicide?"

"Yes," the housekeeper said solemnly.

The door swung open, revealing an opulent study. The floorboards were polished wood the color of chestnuts, the walls lined with shelves of the same, littered with a selection of leather-bound books. The body was still sitting in the luxurious leather chair, behind a massive desk, head thrown back. A spatter of viscous red decorated the glass fronts of the bookshelves behind him.

In front of him, on the mahogany surface of the desk, there was a gun.

Lee patted Gretchen's shoulder, in anticipation of her breath hitching. Hardly a week had gone by without a suicide recently, though the few she'd assisted with so far had involved sleeping pills. There was something almost calming, in comparison, about attending to people who'd died in their sleep, as opposed to… this. 

She'd better get used to the sight, Lee thought grimly, if she were to stay at the department.

"The poor devil," Gretchen whispered, her normally high voice dropping.

"Yep."

Lee would have startled, but who retained the capacity at his age. He turned slowly to find a man with the most unorthodox haircut staring at the corpse. "Sheriff," he said, inclining his half-shaved head.

"Who would you be?" Lee asked.

"Me? Clint. John Clint. I'm… the gardener."

A peculiar haircut for a man who worked in a garden, Lee thought, surely more coverage would be better for the sun, but his hands were calloused and strong, and besides, who was he to judge? The world had already been a strange place when he'd been born into it, and had been moving at a break-neck speed since. His granddaughter had a wife who preferred if people referred to them as  _ they _ rather than  _ she _ , and they were a perfectly nice person, so who was he to declare what was normal.

"Well, we've got to wait for the coroner, regardless," Lee said, scratching his head. "Was it you who reported the suicide?"

"No, that was Mr. Buchanan. He's a representative of interests," Mr. Clint said. The housekeeper shot him a poisonous look from the corner, which he returned with a smirk. Those kids had history, Lee was willing to wager, and not the romantic kind. Curious that Mr. Carter would tolerate such a scandal! He seemed very straight-laced the few times Lee's had the pleasure.

"Is Mr. Buchanan here?"

"Yeah, he's in the library," Mr. Clint said, indicating the way with his thumb.

"We should probably have a word with him," Lee said. He nudged Gretchen, who was still staring at the body and trembling. "You okay, kid?"

"I—" she shook her head and stared at him, eyes wide as saucers. "I'm. Yes. Fine."

"Go get everyone in the house. Tell them to gather in the library, we need to take statements. You okay to do that?"

She took one last look at the desk and squared her shoulders. "Yes sir."

The merry jingle of the doorbell sounded again, and the housekeeper excused herself to show the newcomers in, as Lee shuffled closer to the desk. The gun pointed at the sternum of the deceased, the line of the barrel aligned with a blank sheet of paper, the butt of the handle touching the corner. An odd way for a gun to fall following a suicide. The handle was on the left. Was Mr. Carter left-handed? Lee couldn't recall. He looked up at the neat bullet hole, right between the corpse's eyes and frowned. When was the last time he'd seen Mr. Carter in town? Had he signed anything?

"Sheriff?"

Lee turned and nodded at the housekeeper. The poor girl. The suicide of her employer, while she was in the house, no less, would make future employment in town difficult. He looked behind her at the newly arrived coroner and smiled grimly.

"Bert," he said, holding out his hand. "How're the gourds?"

"Evening, Stan. Hopefully Sam will have the good sense to turn them all into soup, before Linda gets ideas. I saw her eyeing the decorations, and her eye was twinkling. He'd be living in the Great Pumpkin House come Halloween, mark my words." Bert sighed deeply and set his bag down. "What have we got?"

"Suicide," Lee told him, waving in the direction of the corpse, perfectly arranged in the fancy chair, hands on the arm rests, gun on the desk before it.

"Poor bastard."

"Yep."

Bert unfolded his glasses a temple at a time, nudged them twice until they settled on the bridge of his nose just right, allowing him to see over the hairline crack in the left lens. It was a memento from when he collapsed during the decimation, that he really ought to have fixed by now.

"Isn't it high time you got new glasses?" Lee asked. Bert and his assistant had been moving a body at the time. When the other man had crumbled to dust Bert had lost his balance and ended up with a concussion, a twisted wrist, and cracked glasses, immobilized by the weight of the cadaver on the morgue floor. The wrist had healed, but Bert'd been forgetful ever since.

"Hmm? Oh yes, I keep meaning to, but you know how it is. Lu's back in business, but she's got a priority list. These are still usable." He rounded the desk, pressed a hand to the corpse's neck. "Body isn't even cold." The thermometer went in, and Bert studiously noted the temperature. "Could almost be alive inside, it couldn't have happened too long ago."

"Likely around an hour. There were people in the house. Housekeeper, at least." Lee scratched his head. The housekeeper was still behind him, hovering by the door, fingers twitching nervously where they were tangled in her red shawl. "Miss, did anyone hear the shot?"

"Oh yes, sir. We all heard."

"We all? How many people live in this house?"

"Just Mr. Carter."

"So who is 'we'?"

"Mr. Carter was entertaining guests tonight."

"I see. How many people were in the house when this happened?"

"Six," the girl said, winced, and amended the figure to five. She was pale, unnaturally so, especially in this light. Lee sympathized: no suicide is ever easy. He wondered about her: judging by the clothes the girl has not been a housekeeper for long, if ever. The shawl especially seemed way too fancy for the job. She was one of the returned, he guessed, and now, with her employer dead, she was out of a job.

"Thank you." Lee turned to Bert. "How are you doing?"

"Not much to be done." Bert pulled the gloves off his hands and tucked them into his pocket. "Cause of death is pretty obvious," he said, pointing to the entry wound right between the corpse's eyes. "Besides the entry and exit wound there are no other marks. This is definitely a suicide."

"You need the body for an autopsy?"

"Five years ago I would have said sure, but these days we barely have time to deal with the suspicious deaths. The County Board put together a plan to deal with Croton Mills, and the plan involves us picking up their morgue slack."

Lee shook his head in dismay. Verbank got lucky: the decimation had taken less than a fourth of the population, but Croton Mills… That was the stuff Stephen King novels were made of. Sixty percent gone, nearly eighty percent of adults, leaving behind the very old or the very young, and those that remained were not of the best sort. The town had yet to recover, Lee wasn't sure if it ever would. The County Board tried to include them in whatever decisions were being made in the neighboring towns and hamlets, but it wasn't like Croton Mills was the only problem settlement in the area. The best Verbank could do was ward itself off and hope for the best.

"Glad to see someone's doing something," he said insincerely. He watched Bert pack up his bag, and another thing occurred to him. "Does that mean we're not supposed to call you in for suicides?"

Bert shrugged. "They are still talking about it, no one wants to be dealing with Croton, you know?" The real kicker about Croton Mills was that the returned found a place transformed, run by… what they were he wasn't even sure. Certainly not the kind he wanted to associate with. All sorts floated to the top in a crisis, and sadly the sort that inhabited Croton would put the town under, sooner or later. People did not have the strength to deal, not with the decimation and the return, and God only knows what else was coming up. "Best they leave it alone, till it settles. We'll pick up the pieces then."

"Lot of people feel that way." Lee sighed. "What are we supposed to do, if not call you in?"

"Senior officers will be making the call. In case of suicide they go straight to the funeral homes."

"Well, can't be helped." He cast one last look at the late Mr. Carter, sat behind the desk with the visceral halo reflected in the glass behind him, and nodded at the housekeeper. "We're done in here. I'd like to have a word with everyone in the house."

The girl smiled wanly at him and Bert. "Come with me, please," she said, offering him her elbow.

* * *

The sitting room, or the library, or whatever this place was, was grand, much grander than Lee expected. He knew the house was huge, of course, but the scale of the room seemed like it took up space that wasn't taken from the outside. Shame most of it was hidden in the shadows, but with the electricity issues it was to be expected. As it were there was a semi-circle of chairs and couches around an ornate coffee table, surrounded by three standing lamps.

Gretchen was still pale, though holding herself bravely. There was a steaming cup in her hands, which she almost dropped in the haste to stand at attention when he shuffled in.

"As you were," Lee muttered, and gratefully settled in a soft chair Mr. Clint set in his way, completing the circle. "Good evening."

One of the men present rose from the couch. "Good evening, Sheriff. Would you care for a coffee?"

Lee hesitated, but what Mabel didn't know wouldn't annoy her, he reasoned, and the smell of coffee warming up the room was very alluring. "Two sugars, please."

The man strode to the corner to engage the complicated coffee machine there, while Lee took stock. Two women, one of them the housekeeper, and three men, including the gardener. "I would need a list of whoever was in the house at the time of the event," Lee said. "The coroner's packed up, the certificate will be issued in due course. Might take some time, mind, they're doing the best they can."

"We are prepared to wait," the red-headed woman in the corner said. "We've gathered to discuss Mr. Carter's dealings. No one has left the house since his death."

The man who greeted him appeared at his elbow with a filigree porcelain cup. He was a dark-skinned gentleman in an extravagant suit, with a carefully shaved beard and a keen gaze. "You've already met Mr. John Clint and Miss Scarlet Zaklinaya. My name is William Sommersby the second. I'm Mr. Carter's attorney."

There was a faint shudder in the room, as though the house itself sneezed. Lee held the cup in both hands with the greatest care, lest he lose a drop of the excellent coffee.

"Sorry!" the housekeeper cried. "I have allergy."

"Bless you." Lee turned to the pale man with shoulder-length dark hair, seated on the couch next to Gretchen. "That would make you Mr. Buchanan. You called the sheriff's department?"

"Yes. My name's Grant Buchanan. I'm the accountant."

"Accountant? Mr. Clint said you represent interests."

"Yes. I ensure Mr. Carter's accounts are in order," Mr. Buchanan said. Looking him in the eye was… an experience. Lee wasn't sure he'd have wanted him for an accountant, it was not right for a man dealing with finance to be this intense. 

He looked away and turned to the woman in the corner. "And you? I would assume you are family?"

"Oh no," she said. "No relation. My name is Evelyn Salt. I manage Mr. Carter's business dealings."

"Oh, but I thought—" Gretchen sank back into the couch, flushing. "Sorry."

"Not at all. You had a question, officer?"

"It's just, Mr. Carter had an accountant, and a lawyer, and a business manager?"

Miss Salt cast a fleeting glance at the housekeeper and offered Gretchen a charming smile. "Mr. Carter had various dealings. Mr. Buchanan is making sure Mr. Carter's personal accounts are balanced, while Mr. Sommersby's responsibilities include the legal affairs of the estate, and I am the consulting executive officer."

Well, clearly Mr. Carter was richer than Lee and the neighborhood gave him credit for, if his affairs required such representation. Peculiar that he would choose to spend his old age in a house so removed from people, however luxurious it might have been. He should be living it up in a penthouse somewhere, in a big city, like a real millionaire!

Gretchen gamely pretended to understand. "That makes sense," she said shyly, looking at Miss Salt out of the corner of her eye. Lee did not blame her: the woman was a striking sight, seated just beyond the light of the lamps, in an expensive suit and a perfect chignon, seemingly unmoved by the suicide of her employer. His gaze slid to her shoes, and there the illusion shattered somewhat, as instead of the stiletto heels he was expecting he saw a pair of feminine loafers. 

"How can we help you, Sheriff?" she asked, folding her hands on her knee, and the command in her voice forced him to look away from her footwear immediately.

Lee scratched his ear, checked his breast pocket for a notebook, found none, checked his back pocket, nearly spilled the coffee, which the housekeeper rushed to save, found no notepad, looked at Gretchen, and gratefully accepted the pad she handed him. "Was Mr. Carter in any trouble?"

"Yes," Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Sommersby and Miss Salt said at once.

"Mr. Carter has made some decisions that proved… damaging," Miss Salt continued, while the men fell silent. "His organization has to be dismantled as a result."

"So, his business was crumbling." Lee nodded to himself. "Well, that makes sense, the return was a lot worse than the decimation, in a lot of ways, many businesses that survived then are going under now. Trouble with the law?"

"A massive fraud has been committed." Mr. Sommersby folded his arms across his chest and nodded. "Several felonies. A host of minor offences, but really the fraud is the most pressing one."

"What about financially?"

"His accounts are largely in order," Mr. Buchanan said. The others turned their heavy gazes to him, which he summarily ignored. "His personal books are all above board, he has made several investments back in the sixties that would ensure he was financially secure for many, many years. Even the IRS didn't take much."

Lee frowned. And to think the department couldn't afford to get Gretchen a proper uniform! "Tax fraud?"

"Oh no, all perfectly legal."

"You'd think not paying taxes would be more of a problem," said the lawyer with a deep sigh.

"It's only a problem if you don't read the tax code often enough."

"You read the tax code?"

"I'm an accountant, William," Mr. Buchanan said, with the air of a winter chill.

"Fair point."

"So this is settled." Miss Salt leaned forward, hands stapled. "Is there any way we can assist you further, Sheriff?"

"Did Mr. Carter have any family?"

"No," Mr. Buchanan said, this time in a dark, foreboding voice. There was resentment there, a deep-seated resentment bordering on loathing. "He had no family."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Did he lose someone post the return?"

"He was alone for a long time," Miss Salt said sweetly. "Sadly, the people who would miss him didn't really know him, the people who knew him won't miss him, and the only people who truly knew who he was are in this room. There is no one to inform."

"That's sad," Gretchen said, and submitted to a gentle pat from Mr. Sommersby.

"Well, then, I think we've got everything." Lee went over his notes. "Yes, that would be all. If you need a recommendation for a funeral parlor, or a cleaning service…"

"Thank you, Sheriff." Miss Salt stood up. "We will handle the service and the cleaning of the house. When can we expect the certificate?"

"I'll see what can be done. Since the body is now being officially released to your care, I hope it will be soon, but I can make no promises."

"We will manage. Scarlet, please see the Sheriff and Officer Podolsky to the door."

Gretchen sprung up from the couch to take the cup from Lee's hand and then helped him get out of the chair. All of his joints protested the movement, one after the other: this chair was not designed for old men, with its thick padding and deep seat. "Thank you for your time," he told the room at large, and, with Gretchen supporting his arm, he followed the housekeeper down the dark corridor and out into the night.


	2. The things we owe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam seeks advice and support. He finds advice, he finds support, and is beheld by a chicken.

**Three months earlier**

Upstate New York is frankly nothing to write home about. So what if the trees are verdant and the smell of pines is so thick it gets into the car despite the closed windows? What good does that do anyone, other than look good on a website? Sam hasn't seen a house or a person for going on an hour now. Who could survive in this kind of isolation without going crazy?

The arrow on his GPS blinks suddenly, and Sam puts his weight on the brakes, before he remembers, for the fourth time this trip, he's supposed to be saving gas. He slows down and is grateful for it, because right after the turn the road becomes narrow and gnarly. "Did they build it around the roots, or what?" he asks no one in particular, and scoffs when no one answers. Four more minutes, according to Google maps.

He would have saved so much time if he'd flown. Still, he pulls up to the property a couple of minutes before he said he would, though given the way the gates swung open when he even barely slowed the car down, his arrival isn't a surprise.

The gravel crunches underneath the tires as he approaches the first building for miles, and when he gets out of the car he gets a noseful of the pine smell, like it was just waiting to assault him. No surprise, as there's a thick ring of them around the driveway, with a handful of cameras hidden among the branches. Sam takes them in before he turns towards the house itself.

It is gorgeous, in an old-fashioned, white kind of way. The bricks are a rusty red, there's multi-colored ivy on the southern walls, a neat bed of shrubs lines the ground around the perimeter. Even the gravel looks high-class; abundant wealth just oozes out of every gleaming window.

"Damn, Steve," Sam says to himself. Steve's sure done well for himself in the however many years it's been for him. Well enough that Sam looks up at this house and has the feeling he should be looking for the servants' entrance. Do houses even have service doors nowadays? This one definitely does. No way this was built after the world wars, hell, Sam'd be surprised if it was built in the century before the current one.

The backyard was probably a golf course.

The main door is almost quaint, considering the first impression, but the doorbell dispels any quaintness, or that part of it that hasn’t already been dispelled by the discrete cameras monitoring the entryway. The ring reverberates, tingling in the air for a good long while, like the rings of doorbells past are stored in the bricks somehow, and come out when called. That kind of thing cannot be bought with money, it has to grow on money. There's history in this ring.

A few moments later the door opens with nary a creak and there is Steve.

The air leaves Sam's lungs. He's been ready for this, he's  _ seen _ Steve like this already, but the age! Was this how Steve felt when he was woken from the ice? He must have met people he knew before, old and wrinkled, and carrying the years, and felt this, this sense of time having passed without him. If he turns around, will his car still be there? What year will it be if he blinks too long?

"Sam," Steve says, then steps back to let him pass. "Good to see you."

Sam shakes himself. "Hey man. How're you doing? Neighbors not giving you too much trouble?"

"No trouble. It's a quiet neighborhood."

"No shit it is. How far is it from the nearest house, a mile?"

"Two," Steve says with half a smile. "Would you care for some tea?"

"I'd prefer a coffee. You have coffee?"

"Sure." Steve begins shuffling down the corridor, to where Sam can see bookcases through the open door. "I keep the espresso machine in the library."

"Library, huh." Not that long ago, for Sam anyway, they were living out of shitty motels and sharing pilfered paperbacks. Now Steve had a library, and what a library! Sam stops in his tracks and stares. The room sprawls over what must be most of the ground floor. The windows open onto a slope at the foot of which there is more forest, and somewhere in the distance the glimmer of a sunshine on a lake. "Damn."

There's a beep and the sound of coffee beans coming apart in the grinder. "All this and you make your own coffee? I was expecting a maid, or a butler. Possibly both."

"It is a bit old fashioned, isn't it?"

"You won't convince me you keep it clean all by yourself." Sam runs a finger down a row of golden-embossed books and holds it up. "This is spotless."

Steve makes a face. "Books collect dust."

"What, not going to introduce me to your butler? Or maid?"

"They have the day off," Steve quips and busies himself with cups.

Sam keeps looking around, because it's easier than looking at Steve. The room is large enough he isn't even halfway around it when the coffee is done. The mundane question of "milk and sugar?" echoes.

"If you have it," Sam calls back and pauses in front of a row of framed photos. Steve and Peggy Carter, hand in hand, standing in front of the SHIELD logo, mounted on a concrete wall. Steve, in the USO Captain America outfit, smiling awkwardly at the camera, surrounded by a gaggle of pretty girls in tiny, glittering dresses, that must be red, white and blue. Half a dozen other photographs with people Sam does not recognize and the occasional president.

"You've been around," he says when he makes it back to where Steve is waiting with the coffee.

"They didn't know," Steve says quietly, "who I really was. It was safer that way."

"The fifties did not need Captain America, huh?"

"Not as much as the twenty-twenties do."

Sam sighs. Straight to business, then. "I don't think I'm very good at it."

"Not very good at being Captain America?"

"I can swing the shield, I guess. That's not the problem." Other than the ibuprofen-resistant muscle ache that persists for the following day. "I feel like it's too big, you know?"

"It seems that way, at the start," Steve says. "But it will get easier."

"Will it? Everything is such a mess right now."

"That's why you've got to carry the shield. The chaos cannot continue forever, but it also won't go away on its own."

"I guess not." Sam sighs again and sits down, stretching his legs on the thick carpet. "It's just… I miss Natasha. She made everything work, somehow. Even when we were on the run, she made it work. She took care of plans, supplies, everything. You kept us going, but she made it work."

"There's no replacing her," Steve admits. "But maybe you can find someone else who can help."

"Who's left? Rhodey has bigger problems, and I don't want to get tangled with the government, Iron Man is out. I guess there's Wanda, but I haven't heard from her in a while. Vision is dead, Hulk is out of commission, Thor left the planet…" The sunlight plays on the wooden floors, outlining the dark knots and rings with honey-gold. Sam looks out into the trees, the lake in the distance, and wishes for a compass to drop from the ornate ceiling and guide his way out. It hits him then that he's alone with the whole thing. "Fuck. There really isn't anyone, is there?"

Steve ponders for a minute, then turns to Sam with a spark in his eye. "What about Bucky?"

"What? Him?"

"He could really help you."

"Yeah, but would he? We haven't exactly gotten along all that great."

"You seemed friendly."

"I mean…" Sam scratches his head. "We weren't not friendly, I guess, the last time we met."

"He's got excellent training, experience in combat, not that I need to tell you that. He was a sergeant, so he knows how to handle logistics. He's smart and loyal."

"You looking to hook him up with a new best friend?" Sam asks, half-joking, and feels a complicated lurch in his innards when Steve offers a half-laugh in return.

"I suppose I am, in a way."

"It must have been hard, huh, all those years, knowing what was happening to him, while you couldn't do anything?" Sam can't even imagine what that must have been like. He'd have gone after Riley, had he found himself back in 2012, timelines be damned, the universe be damned.

"It was," Steve says. "But he is so resilient. I knew he'd be fine, eventually."

Barnes is fine, Sam supposes, as he mulls the idea over. "I'm not sure how I would feel with him at my back," he admits eventually. He's not trying to hold a grudge, far from it. He's seen the goddamned files, and he has resolved to put their difficulties behind them, for no reason other than the content of the goddamned files. It's the lizard part of his brain that's getting between them. His internal lizard saw the Winter Soldier coming at him with everything he had once, and a lizard does not forget that easily.

On the flip side, Sam is still alive, and the part of his brain that is at least up to dolphin levels pointed out that there was a moment when the Winter Soldier had his hands on him, and instead of wringing his neck he chose to throw him over the side of the helicarrier, and that makes a man wonder. Of course, falling from that height should have been a death sentence, unless a man was equipped with a parachute, and it was a fair bet a man with a jetpack and wings also carried a parachute.

It was a moot point, besides. Sam's met Barnes since then, multiple times, had trusted him as backup well enough. That wasn't the issue. The issue was Natasha, and Steve, and Wanda. They had been a team, and a team was… something more than a guy you knew would back your play in a fight.

"It's understandable you have doubts about him, Sam," Steve says, "however you need support right now, and if he's the only one available, he will have to do."

"He's not exactly welcome in a lot of places."

"Neither was I, for a time." Steve smiles and leans back in his chair, relaxing only when all of his back hits the cushions. "You have a chance to really do something for the world, Sam. You should go for it. I gave the shield to you for a reason."

Sam rests his forehead against his folded hands. "I don't want to disappoint you," he says softly.

"You won't. If you don't trust yourself, trust me. I knew what I was doing."

"You sure about that?"

"I've had a lot of time to think about it."

"I'm not enhanced. Throwing the shield needs the extra oomf." Sam mimics the throw, winces when a back muscle twitches and heaves a deep sigh. He bets Barnes' metal arm wouldn't twinge for days after defeating a nearby tree. "Maybe you should have given it to Barnes."

Steve shakes his head. The light catches in his silver hair. "He wouldn't have taken it."

"Maybe he should have."

"Trust me, Sam. You are the right choice. The world needs  _ you _ to be Captain America."

"Thanks," Sam mumbles, then makes the effort to look Steve in the eye and smile. "It means a lot."

Steve smiles back and picks up his cup of coffee. "Has Fury been in touch?"

"Kind of. I spoke with him briefly after you left, he mentioned SHIELD and resources, but I turned him down. I don't think aligning Captain America with SHIELD is a good idea at this point," Sam says and immediately bites his tongue. "Shit, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I know about… well, you didn't want to talk about it, but it's not exactly a secret that Peggy founded SHIELD. And knowing what it would have become… It couldn't have been easy for you."

Steve sinks back in his chair and closes his eyes. "Yes. It was difficult, knowing what I knew. But time gives you so much perspective, and, despite everything, we are all working towards the same future."

"Here's to the wisdom that comes with age," Sam says with a laugh, lifting his cup in a toast. They clink their delicate coffee cups as the sun reaches the treetops in the distance, shining directly into the library. "Guess I should start looking for him, eh?" As little as he wants to admit it, Steve is right: Barnes is the best choice if he's putting together a team. Barnes is reliable and competent, able to deal with any curveball this job would lob at them.

Sam says his goodbyes and leaves the town of Verbank, buoyed by the feeling of riding on Captain America's blessing, and that feeling gets him as far as New York City, where he returns his rental. He's still got ways to go until DC, but he's got a feeling New York is the place to start looking for Barnes. His gut tells him so, so who's his brain to disagree?

<hr>

The major hurdle to conquer when trying to find a ghost assassin is that ghost assassins tend to be hard to find. His search is a hot mess, much like the rest of his Captain America career so far. The second Monday has him slipping into tautologies and possibly a mild depression. He's low on cash, dispirited, and out of immediate leads, so to cheer himself up he heads for the nearest marketplace, looking for snacks. He finds one in the middle of Brooklyn, in the corner of Prospect Park. It's a small bundle of all kinds of folks, some of them homeless, some of them moving between stands with the haunted air of those who returned to find their past existence erased as thoroughly as though it was their place in the universe that got snapped out of existence, not them.

Sam can't suppress the shudder that goes through him when one brushes past. It's a white woman who meets his eye and carries on as though he isn't even there, like the light is playing a trick on her, and continues on. People move out of her way without looking, like they sense her presence and accept it, but only as it moves past. It's like watching a ghost, this grey woman gliding through a busy marketplace, making contact with no one, just existing on the same plane, no more, no less, and for a second it's hard to not feel unmoored himself, like he's about to collapse into dust again.

It says something that that's exactly when he runs into Barnes. 

He shudders out of the stupor, spies a stand with homemade cake, and he's about to treat himself, when someone to his left says " _ Adank, Bucky _ ," and Sam's head snaps right up. The goddamned son of a bitch is handing a jar of honey to an elderly man.

" _ Nemen zorg, Ori _ ," Barnes says, and watches the man hobble away. He then turns his head and looks Sam in the eye, not even trying to pretend to be surprised. "You want anything?"

Sam's open to playing that game. "What have you got?"

"Honey. Some jellies, compote, a little wax." Barnes spreads his hands over the board, propped up on a couple of bricks, indicating the array of mismatched jars, some of them gold, some of them red, bottles filled with murky liquid, and a bundle of thin candles. "These are for smell more than anything else."

"I'll take the honey," Sam says with a sigh. "How much?"

"Depends." Barnes weighs a jar in his hand. "You've been looking for me."

Here Sam was thinking he was being stealthy. "Yeah. I was."

"Why?"

Well. Sam didn't think it would take no convincing at all. "I'm recruiting—"

"No. Ten bucks."

"Ten bucks!"

"It's half a pound of artisanal, locally sourced honey."

"We're in fucking Brooklyn, how do you get a local source of honey in Brooklyn!"

"Bees on rooftop."

"Bees on rooftop," Sam parrots, searching Barnes' face for a hint of a joke.

"Yes." The asshole is not joking. His hand – the left one – is still extended in Sam's direction, tiny jar of golden goo clasped between metal fingers.

"Fine, give it, Jesus." Sam pulls out his wallet, finds a ten dollar note. "This better be the best goddamned honey ever, or I swear to God."

"You'll rat me out?"

"Don't be absurd." Sam dumps his backpack on the table, rattling the wares, and giving no fucks. He nestles the jar in his clothes, praying it doesn't leak. He does not want to do laundry again. "This is why everyone hates Brooklyn, the prices here are unreal."

"It's also rather pretentious." Barnes lifts the display board with one hand, and carefully moves the remaining jars and candles into a wooden crate he nudges into place with his foot. Turns out the board has a couple of hinges that allows folding it in half, so that it fits into the crate. Barnes fixes it in place with a string and looks at Sam. "Did you need anything else?"

"I'm trying to put together—"

"No."

"Maybe I would hear the 'no' better if you let me finish the pitch. You could be interested."

"You've been throwing the shield at a bunch of thugs, you need backup," Barnes says. "I'm not interested."

Sam was expecting enthusiasm, had in fact prepared a little speech, but the speech had assumed at least a token interest, not flat-out refusal. "The world is kind of a mess."

"It is."

"We could do something about it."

Barnes puts the crate of jars down, and it doesn't escape Sam that he doesn't need to, that the weight is nothing, and the only reason he does it is for Sam's benefit, to better let him feel the weight of what he's saying. "The world is a mess. Always has been, always will be. I have died twice already trying to do something about it. Spare me the guilt trip."

"I didn't mean—"

Barnes has this way of just looking that absorbs all that surrounds him, just takes it in, until everything is silent and his pale eyes become the sole fixed point of the universe, a gateway into an abyss. "You did."

"Shit, man. I'm sorry. It came out wrong." Sam rubs his hands against his jeans, because he knows. He does. He used to be a counsellor, and he is a vet. He gets Barnes. He gets the feeling of weariness, the kind that goes down to your very bones, until it feels like there is nothing in you but that feeling, calcified, hard enough to prop you up. They may not be friends, but he  _ gets _ Barnes. He has seen men and women who came back, who clawed their way back from the other side and came home, by some miracle, having given everything, and here he is, with the fucking audacity to suggest a man like that should give more.

He's kind of impressed, truth be told, because Barnes is standing here with his crate of honeys and jellies, what the fuck, still looking at Sam and not walking away.

"You can talk to Wanda," Barnes says.

"What? You know where she is?"

"Yes."

Serendipitous, yet infuriatingly vague. Barnes starts walking, crate in hand, and Sam follows, until they reach a wall where a bike is mounted on a bent piece of rebar. It's an old bike, the kind that actually looks like a  _ bicycle _ , rather than a bike. If you told Sam that Barnes had bought it himself for his own eighteenth birthday, and unearthed it in some basement last week, he would believe you. Barnes takes it off the wall, affixes the crate to the rear rack and starts walking, leading the  _ bicycle _ with one hand on the handlebars.

Together they walk through the rest of the market, past a semi-permanent stall in front of the laundromat, where a couple of kids are using a generator made from an old mountain bike to power a washing machine. Right over their heads there is a notice: laundromat operates every other day, for five hours; the kids are in charge of the reservations. Dryers are out of service. "Five hour laundromats. Nice," Sam says as they pass, and gets no response past a faint smile.

They've walked for about five blocks, when Barnes makes a stop, leaving the bike against a cast-iron fence. The house it belongs to is a beaten down brownstone, with a selection of graffiti on its lower parts, both artistic and vulgar for the sake of being vulgar. "Wait here," Barnes says, as he ascends the steps with the crate in hand.

An old lady appears in the door, wrapped in at least three scarves. She's tiny next to Barnes' bulk, and the shadows of the entryway are not doing her any favors. She beams when she sees him, though. A minute of hushed conversation follows, and then some of the contents of the crate, along with a handful of cash Barnes pulls out of his pocket, change hands. Sam spies a second old lady, right behind the first one, and then Bucky is coming back down, a couple of zucchinis in place of the honey jars.

"Interacting with your peer group is a sign of mental health," Sam says lightly, gratified to have Barnes half-smile in return.

"I knew their parents. I help them out a bit now."

"Couldn't help but notice you gave them a bunch of cash that looked like most of what you made today, if ten bucks per jar is what you charge." Even unfolded the table was small, and the crate would fit a couple dozen jars, at most.

"I've money," Barnes says shortly, and clams up. Sam keeps his ears open, hoping to convey his interest through silence, and it pays off, because half a block later Barnes opens his mouth again. "They've got a garden. I mostly sell their jellies and pickles. Money's theirs."

"Makes sense. Do they also keep the bees?"

Barnes gives him a look, eyebrows raised. "Nope. Honey is mine."

"Asshole," Sam says with feeling, smiling as he does.

A couple of blocks later Barnes stops again, only this time he picks the bike up with one hand, crate and all, and walks up ten steps to a navy door with a brass knocker. The house is nicer than the one they stopped at earlier; the whole street is. Some fronts managed to escape the tagging, the pavements are clean, and the houses, while not gleaming with newness, look well taken care of. There are curtains in most windows, and those that face east often have plants in them. "Come on in," Barnes says from the door, and Sam follows him inside.

Barnes deposits the bike on the stairs to the basement, about halfway down. He hangs his jacket in the hallway closet and holds out his hand for Sam's. There're already a couple of other garments hanging there, chief among them a woman's coat and a scarf that seems familiar, but Sam can't immediately place where he's seen it before.

"Bucky?"

Sam blinks, and from the other end of the corridor so does Wanda. Her braided hair is curling over her shoulder. She's holding a spatula in one hand and the blue apron she's wearing is smudged with flour. This works wonders towards placing the coat and the scarf in his memory; they're not the same ones he remembers, but the style is very familiar.

"Sam," she says warmly, jogs towards him and throws her hands around his neck.

"Hey," he says. "This is a nice surprise."

"How are you doing?"

"Oh, you know." He's got the shield of Captain America stashed in a cheap motel, hoping to hell it doesn't get stolen while he runs around trying to figure out what to do with it. He's good. "Didn't expect to see you here."

"I… didn't really have a place to go," she says. "Bucky said I can stay with him until I figure it out."

Sam contains a wince, but only just. He's been so preoccupied with the Captain America thing, with the snap and what followed, that he didn't even think about Wanda. She lived at the Avengers compound, back when there still was a compound, and she had no living family. He should have thought about her. "I'm sorry," he says.

"For what?"

"I should have thought of that."

She shrugs. "You don't owe me anything, Sam."

"We're friends. You shouldn't have had to rely on strangers," he says, waving a hand in Barnes' direction.

"Bucky's not a stranger, we've met before."

"You know what I mean."

She shakes her head, and her voice trembles. "Thank you."

Sam smiles back at her, then looks at Barnes. "How do you have a place, anyway? You renting?"

Barnes hesitates. He hooks his thumbs in his pockets and shrugs his right shoulder. "While we were gone Romanov combed through the SHIELD files. They rehabilitated me posthumously. When we got back there was a pile of cash with my name on it, army back pay, restitutions, even a couple of medals for participating in the planetary defense in 2018, fat load of good it did. I bought this place."

"Like, legally?"

"Apparently."

"Must have been some pile of cash, the economy is a garbage fire right now."

"House was cheap," Barnes says, staring at the basement door.

"Cool," Sam says, through the hammering of his heart. Natasha looked into the Winter Soldier files and put them through the legal grinder to get Barnes off the hook, get him his life back, even in death, so that in the event of a miracle he'd have something to return to, and wouldn't need to hit the ground running. Sam wonders what his own situation is like, what with the running and hiding and high-profile prison break last decade.

Barnes must be reading his mind, because the corner of his mouth twitches. "I've checked. You're good, Wanda too. Your bank account has been released."

Sam nods. He'd speak, but he doesn't want to squawk in front of Barnes, and he's pretty sure that's all he is capable of at the moment. He grits his jaw instead, counts to eight. She took care of him, too.

He forces Natasha out of his mind, clears his throat. "Ross hasn't visited? Or Fury?" he asks, because official rehabilitation is one thing, but a super soldier in his prime is not an asset easily dismissed. Sam would know.

"Ross was in a car crash when the snap happened. Officially, he had a heart attack. He's still alive, but retired. Unofficially, he's had a heart attack and a stroke. He's in assisted living. Fury's off in Europe."

"You're… disturbingly up to date."

Barnes shrugs. "I've papers saying I don't owe anyone shit, but tranquilizer rounds go through paper pretty easy."

"And yet you're living in the middle of Brooklyn."

Barnes does the thing again, where he sucks the scant noise out of the room by making eye contact. "Where else would I go?"

"Last I've seen you, you were pretty happy living in Wakanda."

"Wakanda's great," he says. Sam waits, but nothing follows, and after a couple of seconds he slides into the realization that yes, he understands what Barnes means. Wakanda was a safe place, but it wasn't his place. Millennia of isolationism are not shrugged overnight. Brooklyn must feel more like home, even though the last time he's seen it he was leaving to fight in World War Two.

"Are you staying for dinner?" Wanda looks between them, the spatula wiggles left to right and back. It glistens with oil, and, now that Sam strains his nose, he can smell the onion and garlic. "I just started on the chowder."

"I wasn't planning—" he starts, even as his mouth starts watering.

"Stay," Barnes says. "Make your pitch."

"Pitch?" Wanda looks at him questioningly, then whirls and focuses on the kitchen door. "Stay," she throws over her shoulder. "I need to check on the food."

Sam inhales one more time. Yep, onion, garlic, even herbs. "Are you good? There's been food shortages."

"We've got plenty, as long as you don't mind eating squash and eggs all the time." He must read the question in Sam's face, because he adds, "I've chickens. The old ladies pay me in gourds."

"And the honey?"

"Rooftop beehives."

"That feels like it ought to be a meme. Rooftop beehives."

Barnes smiles with the corner of his mouth, already turning towards the door Wanda disappeared through. "Suddenly rooftop bees?"

"Something like that, yeah."

The door leads to a sunny living space, with a heavy table in the middle and a chaise lounge by the wall opposite. The narrow, open kitchen starts just behind the door and ends with the street-facing window. The other window, almost floor to ceiling, opens up onto the backyard, stuffed to the brim with knee-high plants and presided over, as Barnes said, three plump chickens. Or hens? Sam guesses these must be hens, since there's eggs. He takes a step closer and one of them rushes to inspect him through the glass, flapping its wings and giving him the most judgmental side-eye, like it knows what he's been up to. He provides enough material for the bird to go running back to its friends, and cluck disapprovingly. Great, Sam thinks. A clearly psychic chicken is telling other chickens about my failing Captain America start-up.

He looks up, away from the birds, to where far out in the distance there is Manhattan, barely a hint of a skyline in the mist. "Nice," Sam says. "Can't believe the place was cheap, with a view like that."

"Previous owner died here, after the return. Murder-suicide," Barnes tells him flatly.

"Yeah, that will do it."

"Tea?"

"Thanks, would be great."

They move to the kitchen area, where Wanda is chopping up a couple carrots. The smell of frying onions is even stronger now, wafting through the air from a battered old pot.

"You've got electricity here?"

"Yeah. They're promising twelve hours a day starting next month. It's currently eight."

"Damn. We're still at six in DC."

"Sucks." Barnes fills the kettle and starts a burner. "Water's an issue, even now, but Wanda's built a retainer on the roof, so we can collect rainwater. She filters it with magic."

"Magic?"

Wanda grimaces. "I hate it, it's like catching flies out of the air. He makes me."

"It's helping you focus."

"That's true." She drags the spatula through the browning onion and garlic mix and Sam closes his eyes. God, he could just live in this smell, forever. "How have you been, Captain?"

"Oh, you know." Sam folds his arms over his chest. "It's been okay."

"Did you get your house back?"

"No, that's long gone. I've been staying with my sister and her husband, they live in DC."

"They survived the snap?"

"Yes, the two of them and their baby girl. They got lucky. Or not." Sam's still not sure who had it worse.

Wanda peers at the onions and carefully sprinkles a few tablespoons of flour into the pot, followed by milk and stock. She adds a bay leaf and diced potatoes, stirs a couple of times, then takes her hand away while the spatula continues its lazy circling in a red haze.

"Convenient."

"It is." She watches the pot for a few moments, then turns to Sam. "What's the pitch?"

Sam takes a deep breath. "I need a team. Turns out despite my best effort it's hard to be a captain without something to be a captain of."

"Bucky said you've been going after terrorist cells."

"That might be overstating it."

Barnes opens a can and fishes for teabags. "You took down a nascent Hydra cell in DC."

"Really?" Sam remembers a couple of small research labs, even a miniscule weapons manufacturer, but a Hydra cell? "None of them had any octopi on the walls."

"The lab with the dogs. They were Hydra."

How the fuck does he know this? "They didn't advertise that."

"It's an unpopular pastime." The kettle whistles and Barnes carefully pours the water into three mugs. One of them is shaped like an egg, with an orange beak emerging from a crack in the shell. Sam sighs deeply when that very mug is nudged towards him.

"How do you know they were Hydra?"

"I've learned what Google is," Barnes says with a shrug. He points to a tin in the corner of the work table, with the word "sugar" stenciled on the side, but Sam shakes his head. "I also have honey."

"Some of that, yeah." Sam stirs a spoonful into his black tea and takes a sip way too soon. "Shit, fuck. Hot."

Wanda cradles her own mug, gaze fleeting between Barnes and the pot of chowder. "You need help?"

"It's not just Hydra. With the billions of people suddenly snapping into existence there is total chaos, and every wannabe warlord is setting up shop. They need curbing before they get too big to do damage."

"Shocking." Barnes drags the teaspoon out of his mouth and sticks it back in the jar.

"What about Rhodey?" Wanda asks.

"Rhodes is trying to keep the government together, he's too busy for small-time thugs."

"I want to help," Wanda says, but her eyes stray to Barnes immediately.

"I'm not the boss of you."

"You don't think it's a good idea?"

"I'm not," he says again, "the boss of you. Do what you think is right."

"But you're not going to?" she asks, biting her lip.

"I'm not going to be fighting anyone, no."

She grabs the spatula mid-whirl and continues stirring the chowder manually, eyes focused on the surface of the soup. It's familiar, this focus of hers: more than once Sam's found her wandering the facility in search of a revelation of how to atone. She'd be quiet on those occasions, barely present, only the occasional tremble of a cabinet or cutlery would signal something was not quite right. It was generally best to leave her be, until she processed whatever it was that needed processing.

"I think… I think I need to," she says eventually. "I need to do something. I need to be doing something." The spatula runs through the pot, once, twice, three times. A handful of yellow cubes bob to the surface, before sinking again. "Can I still live here?"

"If Wilson's based on DC you might have issues commuting."

"I was thinking about relocating," Sam says. "I don't expect there's less Hydra in NYC than there is in DC, and here I wouldn't have to worry about leading anyone back to Cecile and Kareem. Plus Steve lives in New York state, in case I need advice."

Barnes takes a sip of his tea, somehow not poking his eye out with the spoon. "If you want to work from New York, I have a spare bedroom."

"What, here? No, I can't—"

"It's a big house. You might as well use it for something."

"I thought you didn't want to help."

"I don't want to fight."

"I can't guarantee the fight won't follow me home."

"Better here than to your family."

Sam opens his mouth without making a sound. So this is why Steve wouldn't give up on this bastard, he thinks. Because this is going beyond, this is too much, and Sam's fighting the guilt that's already roaring in the back of his head. But… He needs to be doing something, and to do something he needs help. He needs a base. He's Captain America, and Barnes  _ offered _ .

"Thank you. Truly. But just until I work something out." It can't be permanent, anyway, there are way too many civilians around, in case the situation heads too far down under.

"Might be hard getting your own place without a sugar daddy," Barnes says wryly, and oh no you didn't, you motherfucker.

"Seeing how you just volunteered, please note the only household services I provide include watering plants and throwing frisbees," Sam bites back, and wouldn't you know it, that earns him a full-on grin.

Wanda snickers to herself as well, as she retrieves a coriander full of clams from the fridge. "The soup will be done in a couple of minutes. Bucky, can you get the bowls? And the bread, too."

Barnes sets the table and Wanda summons a bottle of wine off the shelf with a twitch of her fingers. There's no label on it, meaning it probably came from one of the local artisans, who shoved every fruit they could find into the mixer, then topped it off with gourds. It smells like cheap drink and tastes like one, too, but to hell with it, Sam's got a bowl full of hot chowder to wash away the sting, and the scant bubbles rising into his brain are worth the burn.


End file.
